The BLX 200 is the first of what will almost certainly be a long line of Blu-ray players from Anthem. The company is known for making higher end products like amplifiers, receivers, and projectors to complement the loudspeaker offerings of its parent company Paradigm.

Anthem’s BLX 200 doesn’t have much in the way of network functionality or internet streaming, though it does have BD-Live functionality. Instead, the focus is on audio and video quality before anything else.

The BLX 200 offers a 12-bit video pipeline, which means less noise and a sharper picture. It outputs Blu-rays at 1080/24p, and upscales DVDs to 1080p. Of course, if you’ve got a receiver that upscales better, you can send a 480i signal straight to it.

For BD-Live purposes, the BLX 200 has a gigabyte of internal storage and comes with a USB dongle that adds another two gigs on top of that. The BLX is sturdy, with a brushed aluminum faceplate, and offers some nice internal hardware as well. 12-bit, 162-MHz video DACs are a nice touch.

The big downside to Anthem’s new player is the eight hundred dollar price tag. It’s a bit difficult to determine just why we’d want to pay that much more for a player that doesn’t seem significantly better than the go-to Oppo BDP-83.

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